Metropolitan Police Service

Debate between Lord Blair of Boughton and Baroness Browning

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

I quite agree with the principle that my noble friend Lady Hamwee has just espoused. Certainly, the investigations, and the recommendations that will come from them, will, I hope, show us the best way forward for things such as hospitality. Very often, these things come down to personal judgment. All of us in public life have to make a personal judgment about some of these issues, and sometimes we are bound by the spirit of the law as well as what is said in the law. I therefore hope that when we see the final results of the investigations, they will include codes and practices that encapsulate the spirit of the law as well as the law itself.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

I declare a rather special interest. Until yesterday I was the last commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. I am now the one before that. That is rather a striking position. The last time commissioners resigned was in the 1880s; these were Sir Edmund Henderson and Sir Charles Warren. The circumstances were somewhat different; Sir Edmund resigned because the club of which he was a member in Pall Mall had its windows broken by rioters.

My question to the Minister is in two succeeding parts. First, does the resignation of two successive Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police in just over two and a half years indicate that something is gravely wrong with the political oversight and governance of that body? Secondly, does the Minister agree that there is a much wider question at hand than the grave matters now entrusted to Lord Justice Leveson? My concern is that we have a police Bill and the Winsor report, and we now have the Filkin and HMIC reports. Why does the Minister not agree that the Home Affairs Select Committee recommendation should now be put into place and a royal commission into the mission, structure and governance of the police be appointed? Every time this has been raised, the coalition Government have said, “We have not got time”. I think we should take time now.